I wanted my 12 year old son to see the real BG and not the Playstation version, so I bought the game but when ever I try to run it from his account all I get is options to install, exit; its already been installed... Unless I tell win xp to run as different user entering my account and password, but even then after the intro stuff it crashes... Please any help at all would make me very happy...

If I make his account an admin account there is no prob...
Installed in the default dir...

Hi. Did you ever figure this out? I have the same problem, I think, on Windows 7, although I haven't tried running it with different account credentials.

As an admin, I installed it on my own user account. It then works fine, giving me the Play option on startup, under my account. Under any of my children's accounts (non-admins), trying to start the game brings me to the dialogue with the Install, rather than Play, option.

I am on Windows 7 64, but it sounds like the same issue you had. If you (or anyone else) have any ideas, I'd love to hear them. :)

Thanks,
Justin

In windows 7 uninstalling the game and reinstalling outside the programs folder (which gets special protection from the OS) is worth a try.

Or just change the security on the current game's location to allow full access to Users.

I know this is a necro, but the secret is to change the shortcut in your Start menu to point to BGMain.exe instead of Baldur.exe, or just add a shortcut to BGMain.exe.
This bypasses the menu that prompts you to install/uninstall the game, view the readme, update (yeah, like there will be new ones after 20 years), or configure but instead launches the game. Make a separate shortcut in the BG folder to config.exe to run the configuration utility (sometimes you'll want to tweak things).
This will allow limited users to run Baldur's Gate.

At least, this works on the original 5-CD version. I don't have the GoG version.